Amcrest UltraHD 4K (8MP) IP POE AI Camera, 4K @30fps, 164ft Night Color Vision, F1.0, Security Outdoor Turret Camera, Face Detection, Vehicle & Human Detection, Built in Microphone, IP8M-T2883EW-AI

This camera is high end 4k Camera that can hold its own in both daylight and low light! I’ve been testing the IP8M-T2883EW-AI for a while now and it now reigns as the best security I currently use!Right out of the box, the camera feels heavy and well-built. It’s got a full metal housing and is IP rated. The camera does feel like it could live outdoors for years without any worries about it. PoE makes it a breeze to install, one wire for power and data like most of my other cameras!The mount is like most typical cameras and is easy to install and get it locked up properly.Obviously the best selling point of this camera is the sensor and lens, it has a wide field 2.8mm lens and the amazing sensor, it’s a 1/1.2" CMOS, which is much bigger than what’s in most other 4K cameras. This makes a huge difference in low light. You don’t need a floodlight to see things at night.Speaking of night vision, the IR range is great. Amcrest says 164 feet, and while I haven’t busted out a tape measure, it covers my whole driveway, sidewalk, and half the street with clean B&W and color footage. It also has full-color night vision via onboard white LEDs but honestly didn't even need it, it worked great to get enough light with the awesome sensors. The AI features on this model are nice as well and can do good motion detection. I do have some detections happning at my NVR level as well. You can set it to only alert on people or cars, and it actually works. You also get intrusion zones, tripwires to help dial things in.I’m using local SD and Frigate NVR (open source) with no issues. RTSP is supported, so integration is easy! Options for compression is H.264 and H.265, so being able to go H.265 definitely helps with the storage space required for the camera.The web UI is surprisingly good, it uses the newer Amcrest layout which I do appreciate. It is a clean layout and most things are easy to find once you get used to the menus. I appreciate that you really do not need a bunch of plugins for things to work (though it does mention you could download a plugin on MacOS), but I had no issues with live view, playback, settings, firmware updates from the browser. Amcrest’s mobile app (View Pro) is decent but I didn't use it too much as I was moving this camera to Frigate.I love that the camera seems to be InfoSec smart! This camera supports HTTPS, ONVIF profiles, IP filtering, user permissions, etc. Something like IP filtering and role based access is amazing for a camera. Lots of amazing options to truly lock it down. My one complaint here though is some security features like HTTPS are off by default, I would think that and a few other options would be nice to be on by default. With that said, I do find the camera to have security in mind which is great for an IOT type of device.I was able to perform a firmware update from the console. I do wish that they would add the exact model on the page for it so if I want to manually go look for it, it's easier than looking through various pages to find my exact model number. They do state it requires a factory reset (but it didn't when I upgraded and I did not run into any issues).This Amcrest compared to Other Cameras blows most of them out of the park. Awesome sensor, awesome lens, amazing night vision. If you’re into local recording, care about image quality, and want full control over your camera system, this thing is a beast. It’s better than all other cameras I have tested!

I’ve had this Amcrest 4K AI turret PoE camera installed for about a month now, and I’m thoroughly impressed. As someone who has used several other security cams over the years, this one is on another level—especially in terms of clarity and smart detection features.The video quality is truly 4K—razor sharp with a super-wide 125° viewing angle. I can clearly see people’s faces and license plates from a good distance. Even more impressive is the full-color night vision. The two white LEDs automatically kick on in low light, and the difference is huge compared to traditional infrared—it looks like daytime up to 160+ feet out.The AI features are what really set this camera apart. It filters out motion from trees, rain, or animals and focuses on human and vehicle detection. I’ve tested the tripwire and intrusion detection zones, and they’re accurate with minimal false alarms. I also really like the heat map and people counting—great for tracking activity patterns around the house and driveway.I paired it with a PoE switch and Amcrest NVR, but I also tried the Amcrest View Pro 2 app on my iPhone for alerts and playback, and it works well. Plus, the camera integrates easily with Blue Iris and Synology NAS, which is a bonus for my setup.The metal housing is heavy-duty, and the camera handled a recent thunderstorm without any issues. Setup was straightforward for anyone with basic network knowledge—just know that you’ll need a PoE injector or switch since it doesn’t come with one.If you want a serious security upgrade with advanced features and reliable performance day or night, this is worth every penny.

Install was easy. I initialized the camera and got it up and running easily and quickly. I added it to my Amcrest NVR without any problems. Delving into the software a little more, I found it to be lacking. When I first started the WebUI, the image was either missing or would be black. The camera page asked me to download a plugin. There was no explanation of what the plugin does or which browsers it supports. There seems to be no documentation of the settings in the Camera. For example, the Backlight settings offers several modes like Off, BLC, HLC, WDR, or SSA. I can't find any documentation on that setting or the values. This camera also does not have IR illumination. If you want to record during the night, there will be lights on the camera. This is different that my IP8M-DLB2998EW-AI or my IP8M-2779E-AI. Both of them offer IR illumination while this camera does not. This camera would only be really useful in a brightly lit area. As it stands, I might use this out back to keep an eye on my dogs during the day. I will not rely on this camera for night recording. The software on this camera seems to be a step down from the IP8M-2779E-AI even though it has a newer date (2023 vs 2022).AIIn the AI config, I can only enable one method (Face Detection, Heat Map, IVS, People Counting, Video Metadata, or Smart Object Detection even though the interface implies I can select multiple options. So, while I can detect faces, I can't on the same camera, count people or "Video Metadata" (which apparently is for people, non-motor vehicle, or motor vehicle). Again, documentation would be helpful here. After enabling person counting, it did not count one person that walked by but it counted another person. Both people were adults, of approximately the same height and shape and wore different color clothing (blue on counted and grey on non-counted). The Intelligence Schedule slider for the time is imprecise with no obvious way of setting it directly. I did find that the time display allows direct setting of the time but an actual drop down for the time would be better. The time setting can be changed even if Intelligence Schedule is disabled. Disabling the time slider would be more consistent with UI/UX standards. With People Counting enabled, the People Counting report did not work and showed no data. Even changing the timeframe option showed no data.CameraIn the Image | Profile Management, none of the settings are documented. For example, what do the Backlight, Defog, LDC, AFSA mean and what do the values for each mean?Setting schedule is a pain. The slider for setting the time is imprecise and it isn't intuitive that the time can be directly typed after clicking on the slider. I'm not sure if it's my camera or the area I have the camera but the audio only seems to be a warbling sound.PlaybackWhen first opening the Playback option, nothing is displayed. Clicking Search will show Events. It would be nice if the search for the current day was performed. Or give the option to do that.Playback search results only show the same mountain instead of a thumbnail of the event. In Auto Upload, what kind of web server is needed. Setting up a generic nginx webserver on the local network always returned a "fail" message but gave no reason or suggestion. I finally got a succeed message using a fully qualified domain name, port 80, a path, and the All event type. In several hours, including non-person motion and person walking by, I saw no snapshots uploaded to my web server.